


a line in two dimensions

by pawn_vs_player



Series: Adrian's Exam Week Extravaganza [7]
Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Gender Issues, I Tried, Spider-Family, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, but hey you can't prove that they AREN'T trans in canon, everyone is trans FIGHT ME, i will make that a tag myself if i have to, other than everyone being trans, there's no real proof against it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-09 17:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17411474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player
Summary: As it turns out, there is a disproportionately large number of trans Spider-People.((title is a quote from Austin Hartke))





	a line in two dimensions

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME BACK TO ADRIAN'S EXAM WEEK UPDATE EXTRAVAGANZA!! except for the first two paragraphs i wrote everything today pls appreciate me  
> (vocab note for people who are less familiar with trans/genderqueer terminology: "cis" is short for "cisgender", referring to someone whose gender matches the sex they are assigned at birth.)

The first person he tells is Uncle Aaron. Uncle Aaron is family, but he's separate, living in another world from his parents. Uncle Aaron understands him in a way no one else does.

"My name is Miles," he bursts out almost as soon as Uncle Aaron opens the door. "I'm a boy."

Uncle Aaron buys him his first binder and gives Miles a much better haircut than Miles could have managed for himself. Uncle Aaron comes with Miles to tell Miles's parents even though Miles's dad glares at him the first ten awkward minutes of Miles talking.

His mom hugs Miles right away, calls him  _mijo_ and tells him that she still loves him and asks what she can do. His dad is quiet for a while, staring off into space, and Miles is about ready to get up and run away before his dad looks at him, clears his throat, and asks when he wants to get his birth certificate changed.

Uncle Aaron lets go of Miles's hand. Miles flings himself at his parents, crying quietly into his mom's shoulder as his dad rubs his back. 

It's okay. It's going to be okay.

-

Miles gets used to the pain in his chest and being constantly short of breath. He learns to run even though his lungs are compressed. He plays soccer with other boys and doesn't get funny looks. He lets Uncle Aaron keep cutting his hair. On bad days, he curls up under his bed, in the darkness where no one can touch him and he can't see himself, and he breathes until he's ready to rejoin the world. He keeps most of his jewelry in a box in the closet, but he wears small, simple studs in his ears because girls aren't the only ones who can have pierced ears.

Part of him is kind of excited when his dad tells him that he's going to a new school. No one in his neighborhood is ever weird to him to his face, but he knows that some people whisper behind his back. At Visions, he won't be  _the trans kid_. 

Most of him is indignant, though. He likes his school, likes the friends he's made here, likes eating his mama's cooking every night and waking up to the sun streaming in across his floor. He doesn't want to go to a  _boarding school_ of all things.

But his dad wants him to be "the best Miles you can be", and in the end Miles is a teenager and that means that he is not in charge of his life. His parents are.

So he goes to Visions. He doesn't like it, but he goes, because what other choice does he have?

-

Miles is almost fifteen years old. He wears gold stud earrings and is always late to physics class and hates spending time in his dorm room because it's always so awkwardly quiet in there. He wears a binder for probably too much of the day and plays sports and doesn't make friends.

Miles is lonely. But he has a point to prove to his dad, so he doesn't talk to the kids in his classes, doesn't talk to his roommate, doesn't clean up his behavior at school, doesn't do well on homework or tests. One way or another, he's going to get out of this school for good.

Instead of spending time on schoolwork or with friends, like he would have before he ended up at Visions, he hangs out with Uncle Aaron. He has a key and a promise to only use it if it's an emergency, but most days Uncle Aaron is home and waiting with a grin or a can of paint. Like he always has been, Uncle Aaron is Miles's port in the storm. When his dad is pushing too hard and his mom is working another late shift, Miles can knock on his uncle's door and be sure of an unconditional welcome. 

He doesn't know what he'd do without Uncle Aaron. Be lonely and miserable, probably.

* * *

The spider bite changes everything.

* * *

The subject first comes up after they break into Doc Ock's lab. Miles has been up and moving for hours, stuck in this uncomfortable too-small costume, and he needs to take off his binder, take a ten-year nap, and get things back to normal. Not necessarily in that order.

Anyway. They're swinging back into the city, toward Gwen's "safehouse", and Miles calls a stop on a rooftop. His chest is screaming at him and he can barely breathe, air coming in shallow gasps. He's been wearing his binder for way too long; he usually pushes his limits, he'll admit it, going ten or eleven hours when he should really stop at seven or eight, but he's never been stupid or distracted enough to wear his binder for this long before. He doesn't have the luxury to care about what Peter or Gwen will think; if he wants his ribs to work correctly, he needs to take his binder off. Now.

Peter makes a small, startled noise as Miles pulls the costume shirt up over his head. He doesn't care that it will get dirty. He has bigger concerns. Gwen makes a noise of her own when Miles drops his T-shirt to the ground, revealing his binder that he quickly wriggles over his head. He's technically flashing them, but if he was a cis boy no one would care and, frankly, he doesn't give a shit right now. He's too busy reveling in the ability to take deep, full breaths.

"Miles!" Gwen exclaims, pulling her mask off. "How long have you been wearing that?"

He's a little surprised, but it's a better reaction than the one he'd kind of expected to get. "Too long," he quips; then, at her glower, amends that to "Um, fifteen hours? Sixteen? I took it off before I went to the memorial, but I've been running around all night and I didn't have a chance before we broke into the lab..."

Gwen looks horrified. "Jesus, Miles!" 

Peter frowns at him. "Kid, seriously, those are only safe for like, eight hours at most. I wouldn't have minded if you told me you needed to do this earlier."

"Well how was I supposed to know that?!" Miles demands, throwing his hands into the air. A cold wind rushes past them, reminding Miles that he is still shirtless. He hopes that his blush isn't super visible, but he thinks Peter saw it anyway. Peter doesn't say anything about it, though; instead, he shoves his hands into the pockets of the trench coat he  _insists_ on wearing over his costume - he looks so stupid, but he refuses to listen to Gwen or Miles when they point it out - and does a kind of shrugging motion that Miles recognizes from the Peter Parker of his own universe.

"Well, I mean," Peter says, as awkward as always. "I'm trans too, so..."

Out of the corner of his eye, Miles can see Gwen giving Peter the same incredulous look. Peter immediately turns defensive. "What, is that so hard to believe?"

"You said MJ wanted kids," Miles points out, squinting, "and I don't know about your universe but surgery  _definitely_ hasn't gotten that far in mine."

"Also my Peter was trans," Gwen says, "and he was way more sensible than you... before... what happened."

Peter crosses his arms over his chest, not saying anything about Gwen's suddenly dejected expression. "There's this thing called adoption, Miles."

"I thought you were cis!" Miles whisper-yells. "Forgive me for assuming you had the, the necessary tools for procreation!"

Peter narrows his eyes. "Big words there, kid."

"Oh my god," Gwen interrupts. "Miles, here." She digs into a pocket on her suit - and wow, whatever is in there has to be pretty thin because her suit is as skintight as Peter's - and pulls out a folded... thing. She shoves it at Miles. "I know it's not ideal, but you need to put your shirt back on. I am  _not_ swinging through New York with you shirtless."

Miles accepts it, face heating up again. Unfolding it reveals the thing to be a sports bra. "You just carry an extra one of these?" he asks, trying not to wince. He recognizes the necessity, but throwing his old bras into the donation bin at Goodwill was one of the best experiences of his life. He'd been so happy to never wear one again, and now here he is.

"Never know when you might need it," Gwen shrugs. In the time between Miles pulling his T-shirt over his head and it settling around his shoulders, she puts her mask back on. "While we're talking about it, I, um." She looks down at her feet. "I'm trans too. The other way, obviously."

"Huh," Miles says. Without thinking, because Miles is an idiot who is especially stupid around Gwen, he says, "You pass really well."

Peter snorts. Miles tugs the costume back on, feeling like his face is glowing right through the fabric.

"Thanks," Gwen deadpans. Miles pulls the mask over his face and thinks that maybe Gwen means it, even if she doesn't show it. 

-

There are other Spider-People at May Parker's house.  _Weirder_ Spider-People. Peni is mostly normal, except for her eyes and her robot, and Peter B.W. (as Miles calls him in his head) just kind of seems like a guy from an action movie, but Peter Porker is... a talking pig. A talking pig who can float and summon weapons and sounds vaguely familiar. Jesus Christ, Miles is half-convinced at this point that he's passed out somewhere and is having the craziest dream of his life.

Looking at the suits, because this is  _fucking insane_ , Miles notices a weird bulge around the chest area in some of the earlier suits but not the later ones. "What's that?" he asks May, pointing to one of the suits.

"Oh," May says. She opens the container-display case thing and runs her fingers along the material. Her expression is neutral, but her eyes are sad. "This was before Peter's surgery. His normal binder was too stiff for him to swing around in, so I built one into the suit that would flex with him."

Miles blinks. "How many of us are trans?!"

He's... maybe too loud. The discussion among the other Spiders, which Miles is pretty sure was about how bad of a Spider Miles is, abruptly stops. 

"What's 'trans'?" Peter B.W. asks. His coat flaps dramatically. Miles's life is so fucking strange that it's passed by 'panic-worthy' and cycled back around to 'hysterically funny'.

"Wait," Gwen says, hands on her hips. "This Peter was trans too?"

"Too?" the pig says. Wait, actually, Miles doesn't want to call him that, "the pig" is disrespectful. There are too many Peters, though. Miles decides to call him 'Porker'. "Whaddaya mean 'too'?"

"This has to be some kind of statistical anomaly," Miles mutters. Four trans Spider-People, two in the same universe? The world population of trans people is something like 6 or 7  _percent_. The multiverse theory states infinite dimensions, but the odds of four trans Spider-People all ending up in the same dimension? That's a little hard to believe. 

"What is 'trans'?" Peter B.W. asks again. Peter, the other Peter, the first Peter Miles met, steps closer to explain it quietly. Peter B.W.'s face lights up. "You have a word for that here?"

Miles squints at him. "Wait. Are you..."

Peter B.W. tips his hat at Miles. "I know a doctor who'll do just about anything for enough hush money. Beats wrapping, I'll have you know."

"Oh my god," Peter groans. "I  _hated_ the binder."

"It sucks!" Miles agrees. "And you can't even wear it for more than like eight hours!"

"Oh, but the  _surgery_ ," Porker complains. Everyone else blinks at him. "Do you  _know_ how much a duodecuple mastectomy costs? I was living under a bridge for months to afford that! Even residents of Toontown can only alter so much without actual tools."

Out of the corner of his eye, Miles can see Peni sidling over to Gwen. "Am I the only one who went the other way?"

Peni is a really exuberant kid. She's not very good at quiet. The current conversation hushes. Gwen flushes at all the eyes on her; then she glances between Miles and Peni, whose own face is bright red, and lets out a harsh breath. "No, but I don't wear a lot of skirts."

"My dad bought me a bunch of dresses for my birthday," Peni explains. She droops a little. Her robot shuffles closer to her. "And SPDR does most of the fighting, anyway, so it's okay if I have a little less mobility."

Gwen lays a hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "That makes sense."

Feeling awkward, Miles turns to May Parker. "D'you think you could show me how to get a binder into a suit?"

But that turns the conversation back toward Miles's capability as a superhero. Things get messy after that.

-

He goes to Uncle Aaron's apartment almost without thinking about it. Uncle Aaron is safe, and his apartment is Miles's own version of a safehouse. Uncle Aaron may be out of town, there may be a black hole about to form under Brooklyn, and Miles may have gained superpowers that he doesn't know how to use, but Miles will be safe at Uncle Aaron's apartment. 

Except Uncle Aaron isn't out of town. Uncle Aaron is searching through the apartment for Miles and doesn't know he's looking for Miles. Uncle Aaron is Prowler. Uncle Aaron is one of Kingpin's lieutenants. Uncle Aaron is a  _supervillain._

Miles really wishes he's having the trippiest nightmare of his life, passed out in an alleyway somewhere. But he isn't. He knows he isn't. This is real, and he doesn't have the time to have a crisis over it.

He needs to get back to the others.

-

Uncle Aaron followed him back, and now there are five supervillains in May Parker's living room, and it's all Miles's fault. The others are getting hurt and May Parker's wall is in pieces and it's all Miles's fault. It's all his fault.

Uncle Aaron corners him on the rooftop. The metal claws of his suit dig into Miles's neck. He seems to be trying to decide whether to strangle Miles or drop him.

Miles has had a lot of nightmares in his life, but this - being a failed hero killed by a supervillain, being  _killed by his uncle_ \- this was never one of them. Miles is an imaginative kid, but this was too far from reality for his brain to contemplate.

Except that this is real. The bruises Miles can feel forming around his neck are made from Uncle Aaron's claws as he slowly strangles Miles to death. Miles is going to die - Uncle Aaron is going to kill him and he doesn't even know it's Miles.

Miles's eyes burn. His lungs have never hurt this much, even after wearing his binder for way too long. 

He does the only thing he can think of to do.

"Please," he rasps, shoving clumsily at the hem of his mask. "Please, Uncle Aaron."

His uncle's eyes widen in horror. There is a moment, a frozen moment where they look each other in the eye and Miles genuinely cannot tell if Aaron is going to keep going. It is the most terrifying moment of Miles's life.

And then there is a gunshot, and Uncle Aaron falls, and Miles goes with him.

-

"I love you," his uncle chokes out, hand bunched in the fabric of Miles's costume. "So much. You're such a good kid, Miles. You're brilliant."

Miles is sobbing so hard he can barely talk. "No, stop it, we can call 911, hold on, please hold on - "

Uncle Aaron shakes his head. "You're a hero, Miles. I'm so proud of you."

" _No,_ " Miles pleads.

"Love you, Miles."

 _Say it back_ , his dad's voice whispers. "I love you too."

The words are shards of broken glass in his throat.

Uncle Aaron smiles, and closes his eyes, and breathes out.

Miles's heart is being squeezed in a vise. He folds over on himself and  _cries._

And then a familiar voice says, "Freeze! Put your hands up!" and Miles's day somehow becomes  _even worse._

-

Peter webs him to his deskchair. He doesn't say it, but it's clear that they don't trust Miles to do what has to be done. He's a stupid, untrained, useless child and another Peter Parker is going to die because Miles is too weak to save him. His uncle is dead and the Peter of his universe is dead and his dad hates Spider-Man and the only people other than his uncle who have ever understood him are leaving him.

But then his dad is at the door.

-

_I love you, kid._

_You have this, this_ spark _in you. You could do anything you put your mind to._

_You're my son, Miles, and I love you. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear enough._

_You're the best of all of us. You've got your mom's heart and your uncle's spirit, and you commit to the things you truly care about._

_I'm so proud of you, son._

_I love you._

-

May helps him put the suit on, adjusting it to his size. The binder settles around his torso and squeezes gently. He does a couple experimental stretches and is amazed when it really does move with him instead of constricting his ribcage.

"You," he tells May in absolute seriousness, "are a  _goddess._ "

"Flatterer," May grins, gently swatting Miles's shoulder. Her hand comes away smudged black, but she doesn't give it a second glance. "Now go be a hero, kid. And bring my suit back in one piece!"

He gives her a sloppy salute - "Yes, ma'am, I promise." - and then he starts swinging his way up the elevator shaft, because he has  _spider-powers_ and what's the  _point_ if he doesn't get to do anything cool with them?

-

There's a moment, hanging from the ceiling, watching the rift spin and bubble below them, that he wants to beg them to stay. They understand him in a way no one else ever has. They  _get it._  

But they'll die if they stay, and enough people have died because of Miles already.

-

"You can do this, kid," Peter promises, and he's older, his hair is brown-going-gray at the temples and he's stubble-chinned and his belly hangs out in the suit, but just then he looks so much like Peter Parker had in his last moments, mask in tatters and dust caked in his hair, pressing the thumb drive into Miles's hand and telling him to be a hero. Miles's chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with the binder.

It's the earnestness, he thinks. Peter believes what he's saying. He's worried for Miles, but he doesn't doubt him. He thinks Miles really can do it.

"Thanks," Miles says, at a loss for anything better. "Say hi to MJ for me."

Peter laughs, a little roughly. His eyes are shining. He doesn't say anything else before he lets go, plunging headfirst into the rift.

Color splashes back around his body, red and blue bubbles rising and popping. The world is an ever-shifting neon fever dream. Somewhere in the distance Kingpin needs to be dealt with, but just for a moment, Miles looks out at the chaotic riot of color and light and thinks that this was what the big bang looked like, this is what creativity is in its basest form, this is creation stripped down to its core elements.

A piece of concrete goes hurtling by Miles. Moment of existential contemplation over. Time to be a hero.

-

Those massive hands crash into Miles. For a moment he's watching it happen outside his body, but it's not his body, it's Peter Parker, blonde head slumped against the rubble, blood at the corner of his mouth - then he slams back into his own skin, his own head bouncing against the concrete, his chest bending sickeningly in toward his organs.

It's almost familiar. It's like the binder, except constricting far too much, pressing too far inward. He can't breathe. His vision is swirling spots of color and he can't tell anymore whether that's what is really around him or whether he has a head injury.

Miles is so tired. His friends are gone. Uncle Aaron is dead. He doesn't want to keep fighting. He wants to stay here, lying down, and go to sleep.

-

_"You can do this, Spider-Man!"_

-

Miles gets up. It is the hardest thing he has ever done, but he gets up, because he has to. His mom and the rest of Brooklyn are in danger. His dad is in danger. His dad believes in him. Peter believes in him.

He has to do this, but more than that, he  _can_ do this.

He's Spider-Man, and Spider-Man always gets back up.

**Author's Note:**

> mcu peter parker is also trans, but he's not animated so he didn't get an appearance in this story. sorry.  
> spider-ham's line about the duodecuple mastectomy is taken from an _excellent_ trans!Spiders fic also in this fandom, "People Like Us" by spiderhamsaidgayrights. go read it. it's great.  
> not gonna lie, i cried writing aaron's death scene. always gets me right in the feels.  
> and i know the ending is kind of abrupt, but i'm tired and i just want to get this posted so i can go to bed without feeling like shit for breaking the exam week tradition. so, goodnight everyone, hope y'all enjoyed the read. comment/kudos if you did, please!


End file.
